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Friday, July 22, 2011

San Diego Comic Con Day 1

Yesterday was the preview, today was the first official day of the San Diego Comic-Con 2011. Transformers held multiple panels today from Hasbro, IDW, and Transformers: Prime revealing upcoming toys (including asked about DOTM toys), comics news, and hinting at a significant story arc for Prime.

Hasbro Transformers PanelThe Hasbro panel revealed a bunch of new toys that are in the works. The Generations line is getting relaunched with Junkheap (Wreck-Gar repaint) and Sky Shadow (Thunderwing repaint). Dark of the Moon wave 6 toys will include deluxe Wheeljack (specifically not Que) and Soundwave who will come in deluxe, Human Alliance (with Dylan Gould), and legion sizes. Additional DOTM toys include Air Raid and Darksteel. Target will be getting two score exclusives in the form of Leadfoot and a Leadfoot/Twin Twist two pack. Not sure why they just don't do a Wrecker trio set. Even more Transformers: Prime toys were teased with concept art for legion & deluxe class Wheeljack, legion Bumblebee, commander class Ironhide, deluxe Soundwave with Laserbeak, deluxe Knockout, voyager Skyquake, and voyager Starscream.

Transformers: The Ride TeaserAs a bonus, Hasbro revealed during their panel concept art (such as Evac) along with a teaser trailer for Transformers: The Ride in 3D that is coming to Universal Studios in Spring 2012. The official website has also been launched for the attraction.

New Transformers Toys - Star Wars Crossover | TF Prime Wave 2Hit links for new Transformers toys placed on display for SDCC. The first link is a single image of scout sized Star Wars Crossover toys. The second is the 2nd wave of Transformers: Prime toys that will be released in December.

IDW Transformers PanelThe owners of the comics rights to Transformers discussed their plans after the Chaos storyline concludes. To start, the ongoing will jump in numbering to Transformers #125 with The Death of Optimus Prime story. In January a digital comic (with likely print version) called Autocracy will be launched that may be the story arc that focuses on what about ancient Autobot society that led to the rise of Megatron and the Decepticons. If Transformers: Heart of Darkness is any indication, the Chaos battle against "D-Void" will lead to a forced unification of the Transformers factions with all the problems that come with. After Transformers #125 the series will be split into two. Once called Transformers: Robots in Disguise that will focus on "clash ideology" and the other called Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye that will likely explore the new status quo (in whatever form it is). The panel ended with a Q&A revealing no Dinobots for now nor Wreckers but a GI Joe/Transformers crossover is likely. Last, they revealed that the Marvel Transformers will return with issue #81 through to #100.

Transformers: Prime PanelThe panel for Transformers: Prime was more or less a repeat of the Botcon panel in topics with discussion of the origin of the series and the quick turnaround from idea to getting the show to air. Biggest challenge was designing the Transformers to have a unique and cool look with all the variations that were possible once consider the multiple existing versions of each character. In the Q&A portion the answer to Dinobots was "part of our long-term plan", "We'll have Combiners", and yes to Exosuites. The panel also teased a major character death before season 2 starts along with a video that ends with "He is coming..."

TF: THE RIDE looks fun. My parents & I will be going to Universal Studios Hollywood & Disneyland next summer. Will Evac be a figure that you can only buy @ USH? I do hope that they bring this ride to USF within the next 5-6 years. Where is the Dino/Mirage figure/

Man, would you guys stop with the Unicron bullshit?! Seriously! That's obviously not Unicron dumbasses... that's devastator from ROTF (although I don't understand why he's alive in TF: The Ride when he died in ROTF).

And WTF, Bumblebee getting his butt kicked by Soundwave?? No... Bumblebee would rape his ass XD it's true though, besides he did so in DOTM. TF: The Ride looks like (and I know it's not well linked with Michael Bay's TF films; that's quite obvious) it has a few mistakes, but oh well... I believe it will still be awesome.

I will be rather curious to see how the story line for TF: The RIde will fit in to the continuity of the TF movies. Regardless, I am counting down the days, hours, minutes, and seconds until my Dad & I get to go to USH and go on this ride next summer. If Evac is a USH exclusive figure, I assume it will be a deluxe class size toy, I'll call the park ahead of time and see if I can order 1 through the mail in case they're sold out of it by the time we get there. I think that it would be totally sweet if maybe we came face to face with Sentinel and Megatron and just before they destroy us, here comes Ironhide, back from the dead, and Optimus to defeat them and save the world! I would love to see Ironhide shoot Sentinel in the face as payback for what happened in DOTM. Ok, probably not going to happen, but we'll see. I had 1 thought about why it's taking Hasbro long to put out a Mirage figure. Maybe Hasbro hasn't gotten approval from Ferrari to use the likeness of their car as a toy yet. I would be shocked if no Mirage figure is ever made considering that he had a lot of screen time in DOTM. He was a cool looking character, so I hope that it won't be too long until we see a toy.